adventures of a belly dancing acupuncturist

This started as a travelogue to Turkey in the fall '05 so that I wouldn't have to send multiple emails and postcards. I'm still adding anecdotes as I remember them, but it's morphing into a "rant to the ether" spot. Stay, or go. This is my bit of space to do with what I wish.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Integrity Part 2

read the letters to President Bush by Professor Peter Caws of GWU at

www.nadasurf.com/diary/index.php

I am not a writer by nature, and I'm not always able to simultaneoulsy take both the broad and detailed view of things, and retain a sense of discernment. So when I have the opporunity to share what I am not able to express myself, I do. These letters are the beginning of a series that is still in progress and may not be reproduced without proper acknowledgement of and permission from Prof. Caws, but feel free to send any interested readers to the above link to read them.

Integrity: Unimpaired moral principles; honesty; soundness; the quality of being whole or undivided. A bit different than the understanding I had in my mind, or is it just the language used by the dictionaries on my shelf? My understanding of the world seems more acurate as I look at the synonyms in the thesaurus. The image of the woman smoking while hooked up to her oxygen tank is still my perfect antithesis of integrity - definition by opposite.

please identify yourself; not just some anonymous Colorado organization (the one that meets at the Merc on Mondays?), something more concrete. if you want to spam my journal, you should at least have the nerve to sign a name of some sort to the post beyond your vague collective, not just the subject of your attack.

thank you,

tovah

and yes, this is my Hebrew name. and if you are in the Denver metro area you've likely met me, and I've likely identified myself in some way that you know my English name and what I do and where I live. so although I use a name here that I don't use often, I am not hiding. unlike you.

with that rant over I feel too irritated to use my blog for the reasons that I've created; to rant about belly dancing (the good, the bad and the ugly, heavy on the second 2), to react to things from a green meme feelings perspective (tho I am striving to be a full on yellow meme residing gal) and to still eventually rehash some still untold stories from last year's trip to Turkey. will I now get spammed for my love of Turkish Roma music and dance now that they're putting the screws on the Kurdish minotity causing violent responses in return?

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Integrity Part 1

2 quick examples of the lack thereof:

1) the woman sitting outside Diedrich's the other morning who, in the 15 or so minutes between her sitting down 2 tables over and my departure, smoked at least 2 cigarettes while tethered to a portable oxygen source.

2) the fact that neither the Rocky Mountain News not the Denver Post covered the big Democratic fundraiser in Greenwood Village yesterday. Bill Winter (who will beat Tancredo come November) won a fundraiser attended by former VA Governor Mark Warner, it was attended by Diana DeGette and the other 3 Democratic challengers to open and republican held congressional seats. this was a big deal, and there were reporters from these papers there. It did not make the online editions of the papers, not even as a blurb in the briefs column. the Post did cover Hastert's fundraiser for O'Donnell. and they wonder why we don't trust them nor take them seriously.

a friend emailed me from London yesterday about being bewildered by the world at large. I'm stunned sometimes about the little ineptitudes that can be bewildering just in this middle of nowhere cowtown.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Doing my best to remain impartial, despite annonymous commentors. I still trust Ken Gordon, as I know we're not getting the truth from the media on the Lebanese war, but I believe we're not getting the truth from Hezbollah either. Everyone has reason to spin, everyone is manipulating the facts and Ken Gordon is still entirely trustworthy regardless of what some activists here in Colorado would like you and me to believe.

That said, I am glad that I was not at my 20th high school reunion last month as I am not a Zionist.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

well, another carpet bagger snows the masses. seems being the son of a former governor precludes actually living in the district one is running in and, as of a couple of hours ago, winning the primary for the state senate (buying a condo and registering to vote there after a candidacy is announced despite not living in it was sufficient).

oh well.

and much more remains unwritten in favor of mulling over acupuncture techniques based on the Yi Jing and figuring out how those techniques would fit in well up at the South Park Music Fest next month. suggestions anyone?

Thursday, August 03, 2006

the act of voting

I love the act of going to the polls. One of my clearest snippet of a childhood memory is from election day 1976, weeks shy of my 8th bday, I was online with my mom at our polling place on east 82nd street with at least one of my sisters singing Dole is a pineapple, we know he is, Dole is a banana, we know he is . . . . If you don't remember, or don't know, Dole was Ford's running mate. My first election day eligible to vote the NYC elections consisted of various judge positions. 6am to 9pm with maybe 20 people tops turning up at the pols. One of the longest days of my life.

I like to vote in person. My last election day in Oregon was the first run of mail in ballots only. While I understand its efficacy both financially and for ability to spend time on the various ballot measures, I still love the ritual of the process. So today I went down to the Webb building while doing some errands downtown to vote early (my preferred way now, so I can be available to a campaign of choice on election day itself). At 10:30 there was no line and my arrival specifically to vote was practically an event. I was reassured to see the paper record printed out with my selected choices (the only real choice city wide being the Xcel monopoly - voted no, and I did have a primary for SD 32 - one more vote for Jennifer Mello there), but who knows what really happens when all is said and done. I trust the city of Denver, I do not trust the secretary of state (only Ken Gordon will be able to fully restore my trust in that office).